i heard that same story in high school when we went for a field trip. im trying to figure out how real that story actually is for certain reasons. do you know anything else about it? just wondering. so glad you posted this cuz i couldnt find the story anywhere. there was so much i forgot like that part about the all boys school.

Anyone here ever been to CIMI Camp at Toyon Bay on Catalina Island? Well, if you haven't, their is a ghost story they tell you while your there. The story goes like this:

The camp was previously a school boys and the dean stayed with his wife on the hill over looking the school. The wife wanted to have a baby girl, but instead got a boy. She wanted a girl so badly since she was completely surrounded by boys. One day, after the boy turned 8, he was playing by the cliff side and fell. The mother was shocked and ran out to see the boy hanging off of a branch. She reached down for the boy, but slowly backed away, thinking how badly she wanted a girl. The boy fell to his death afterwards. The wife told the husband that she fell asleep and the boy snuck out. They had another child, a girl this time. When she turned 6, she fell off the cliff and held on to the ledge. The mother ran out to save her. The girl looked up at the mother and said, "Will you save me this time mommy?" Then she let go of the edge and died. The mother was so shocked to hear this that she burned her house down... with herself in it. The husband came home to see only the chimney standing. He was so sad that he left Catalina and closed the school.

Now we take hikes up to the chimney that has a beautiful view of the ocean. So, one day, we went early in the morning to catch the sun rise. I took two pictures; the chimney and a scenic view. I accidentally got my thumb in the chimney pic, but on the scenice view, you can clearly see a white fog in the corner. It was a clear day with very few clouds, and yet their is some sort of fog.

Here is my problem with the story. If the mom let the little boy drop to his death and presumably never told anyone, taking the secret with her to her suicidal death, then how is there a story to begin with? Dead people tell no tales generally.

Anyone here ever been to CIMI Camp at Toyon Bay on Catalina Island? Well, if you haven't, their is a ghost story they tell you while your there. The story goes like this:

The camp was previously a school boys and the dean stayed with his wife on the hill over looking the school. The wife wanted to have a baby girl, but instead got a boy. She wanted a girl so badly since she was completely surrounded by boys. One day, after the boy turned 8, he was playing by the cliff side and fell. The mother was shocked and ran out to see the boy hanging off of a branch. She reached down for the boy, but slowly backed away, thinking how badly she wanted a girl. The boy fell to his death afterwards. The wife told the husband that she fell asleep and the boy snuck out. They had another child, a girl this time. When she turned 6, she fell off the cliff and held on to the ledge. The mother ran out to save her. The girl looked up at the mother and said, "Will you save me this time mommy?" Then she let go of the edge and died. The mother was so shocked to hear this that she burned her house down... with herself in it. The husband came home to see only the chimney standing. He was so sad that he left Catalina and closed the school.

Now we take hikes up to the chimney that has a beautiful view of the ocean. So, one day, we went early in the morning to catch the sun rise. I took two pictures; the chimney and a scenic view. I accidentally got my thumb in the chimney pic, but on the scenice view, you can clearly see a white fog in the corner. It was a clear day with very few clouds, and yet their is some sort of fog.

The Catalina Island School for Boys was a college prep school, and as such, had no "deans"-- it did have Masters, and of course a Headmaster.

Headmaster from the twenties until WWII, when the school was evacuated, would be one Keith Vosburg (my Uncle Keith), who founded the school. Keith never married. When the school re-opened in the early sixties, due to the efforts of some high-powered and well-heeled alumni, aging Uncle Keith came out of his Azusa orange grove to once again play the Headmaster, and was followed by Paul Sherbert and John Iversen (late sixities, and early seventies, respectively), both married but with no children on the island (and well past child-rearing age in any case).

Some of the Masters, with the help of their wives, did in fact have children, but I know of no incident such as the one you describe, and I'm sure I would have heard of it, if not from Uncle Keith himself, who loved to talk about the school, then from any of the other students while I was there, while huddled around a bong up the canyon or down among the rocks on the beach after "lights out".

We did hear lots of ghost stories, but they usually had to do with the local native americans, and involved stuff like mysterioous lights and sounds. The only ghosts in the dorms were the shiprats, and whoever kept stealing my goddamn munchies.

Most of the stories consisted of specious rumors about who was banging which faculty wife. Sorry about that, faculty wives, I'm sure you were all quite faithful and are very nice, but hey, we were teenaged boys with raging hormones; what are ya gonna do.

Hi Chris,
Gee...haven't seen you for forty years and I'm gonna have to disagree with you.I'm sure you remember the red headed girl story involving the seaplane? I would probably agree about ghosts in the dorms but we were usually stoned back then so....I did notice things though.Andy Bleecker and I had a reall weird experience in Eagle and Sam Graham woke up to giggling girls around his bed in the staff home across from Bushing's and the Herrick's places.So, I guess one believes what one has experience with huh? Given your talents back then in art work it would have been nice to do a ghost comic with Harry.Iverson would have just said,"Write me a letter" if we'd said we'd seen anything....you were there when Duke started opening the graves at the boathouse so I'm sure you remember stuff then.Your comment brought back John Simons and a faculty wife,after you left the wives improved considerably.And yeah,hormones were definitely raging in Toyon.... ..Back to the seaplane story...we had a couple of kids that apparently saw "something" in the dorm under Bushing's room and the result was a sedated trip to a room overtown.I am aware of two of these incidents personally.I remember either Mike Taylor or Bill Munz relating a similar story at one point.Hope you are well.Gotta go on a junction run......

No one who has lived on the island for any length of time ever really leaves, I often say, Doug (Toyon), and your memoir brought a lot of those days back into somewhat hazy focus [laughing]. Ah, those were the days.

I recently got reacquainted with Biology Master Dr Bill Bushing, (who we simply called "Boo") who actually never left and happily spends his days diving around the island cataloging kelp species or something, I'm not real sure what. He lives in the Avalon suburbs-- seriously, there's housing developments up the Avalon canyon now.

The only little red-haired girls I ever knew of at Toyon would be the offspring of that crazy Scots Maintenance Engineer Hugh Macintosh, who once threatened to beat me to death when he caught me stealing lumber from his workshop, and again, I never heard the seaplane story.

Re the "other stories", yeah, you heard the same ones I did. Boo related another to me in a recent email, involving him, late evening, the fairly hot wife of a History Master who was over town, and negligee. Woo woo.

And give yourself a slap upside the head for me from Duke Snyder for referring to the local natives as "Cabrillo indians". As Duke would tell you, they were Pimu, and Cabrillo is the name of a Spanish explorer who slaughtered them while plundering up and down the California coast.

Incidentally, for those not acquainted with islandspeak, "over town" means "on the mainland."

As a last add, in El Monte, California, there is a small museum housing relics of California culture, and among them is a telephone switchboard: magnificent: polished oak and shiny brass plug bay, which they acquired from Avalon, Santa Catalina Island.

Avalon holds the distinction of being the last place in America to use a switchboard and operator to place calls-- you'd pick up the phone and wait for the operator to answer and then tell her who you wanted to talk to, and she'd connect you up. As you might imagine, the operator knew you and the person you were calling and couldn't resist listening in on the call, so she knew your business, and so did everyone else in town as a result.

This egregious invasion of privacy will no doubt raise a few eyebrows in our current paranoid age, but back then, well, it actually was sort of endearing, and one of the things that bonded islanders together-- if you have no secrets, you can tell no lies, you might say.

If you didn't see it with your own eyes, or hear it with your own ears, don't invent it with your small mind and share it with your big mouth!

Posted 21 November 2012 - 12:14 AM

My problem with the story is the same as orange."The girl looked up at the mother and said, "Will you save me this time mommy?" Then she let go of the edge and died. The mother was so shocked to hear this that she burned her house down... with herself in it. The husband came home to see only the chimney standing"
This story sound like a myth, because there is no way of knowing what happened or what the little girl said, because the mother killed herself before the husband got home. it even reads as a myth.

In an ideal World a law would be passed were NO guns were allowed and all those out there destroyed, trouble is the law makers are not going to take a risk of trying to pass that without making sure they are armed first.

Yes, it could very well be a ghost. There have been so many ghost sightings that a few of them have to be true, and the Catalina Island Ghosts sound very plausible. Although perhaps it could also just be legend as well.

Chris,
I stand corrected on the tribal name.As regards learning....Ninth grade was the best twelve years of my life.Boo had many an empty bottle of Ouzo due to my behavior.To this day I occasionally reflect on the uh... qualities of Mrs. Weston,Graham,Herrick and Boston.To the best of my knowledge,I hold the record for most demerits in the school's history. Bleecker,Chris (the nurse's son) and I had a very weird encounter with the alleged witches of Avalon one Saturday in Silver Canyon,the spirits at the school will continue to provide stories around the fire for my kids and grandkids,and the magic of our island which so few get to truly experience will always be in our hearts.I'll always be a proud Toyoner.

I have no idea what the record was for total demerits, but I think I may be correct in saying that the most demerits ever awarded for a single offensive act were those given to myself and Scott Barnes for booting soccer balls into the backsides of buffalo on the soccer field in the middle of the night while laughing like hyenas.

Yes, we were both on acid, and very cranky Chemistry Master Tom Parsons leaned out his window with a flashlight to tell us to knock it off, and the following day, the major award was posted: Fifteen demerits each, for "Badgering the Buffalo."

Before that day, the most I'd ever seen awarded for a single offense was ten. I added to the pile built before this event and after, and topped it all off by going AWOL and spending the night in Avalon with my girlfriend (yeah, more acid), and that was what finally got my fool ass expelled (no idea how many demerits I'd racked up by then).

Incidentally, I was expelled the day after my Uncle Keith died. Iversen said to me at the time that he would have expelled me sooner, but "it would have broken your Uncle's heart."

What was actually the case, I think, is that he waited until after Keith's death because he didn't want to jeopardize the chance that Keith might have planned to bequeath a load of dough to CIS in his will. He needn't have bothered to wait-- Keith was not really a wealthy man, and in his will, made CIS the gift of whatever of his books and paintings were left over-- after his heirs (assorted nephews and nieces) got through picking through them.